There Is No Safe Place To Store Nuclear Waste

To Whom It May Concern,

The study of geology can tell us about the Earth's processes that occurred in the past. It cannot tell us about the future. It's only assumed that geological processes will continue in predictable ways. Assumptions are not a sound foundation for decision making when there are any risks at all. It's still impossible to accurately predict an earthquake.

When it comes to nuclear energy and waste, we are dealing with a high degree of uncertainty. We are aware of the potential danger of nuclear energy. Radiation causes cancer. Low levels of radiation exposure over a long time causes cancer too. Radiation sickness will kill a person within days. Nuclear advocates assume nothing bad will happen. The Chernobyl disaster was said to be caused by Soviet Union mismanagement and that would never happen in democratic countries (except it already had at Windscale and Three Mile Island), then Fukushima happened in highly competent Japan. They claimed to have no other option than to dump its radioactive water into the oceans and now the fishers and farmers have lost their livelihoods.

What I know from studying geology is that bedrock is fairly stable, the Canadian shield is old and fairly stable, but it is bored into, it can become destabilized. If pressure builds underneath a destabilized segment of bedrock, from the great unknown seismic activities beneath the Earth's crust, a new volcano could form at the site, spewing up lava and all of the radioactive material stored there, raining down on the people and the environment like a snowy ash. This scenario needs to be considered as a real possibility, even if it's something that might not happen for 50 or 1000 years. We nee to take care for future generations.

Another major issue is that the highways are not safe for transporting nuclear waste and other materials. Accidents happen all the time, putting people and the environment at risk all along the route. How many drunk drivers are there out there? How many people die because they drove their car into the ditch in a snowstorm? Another thing to think about, how many oil and gas pipelines have leaked after the pipeline companies said they would not? A nuclear waste spill anywhere in Canada would be a disaster. A disaster is bound to happen if the countries goes ahead with its plans to expand the industry.

Nuclear power is a dream of the future from the 1950s. We know better now, but it seems like the leadership today want to repeat the mistakes of the past. A small error can have significant consequences. There are a greedy few who want to make a lot of money from nuclear energy, and that's all this is really about. I bet when they built the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine that they figured it would never be shelled by Russia today. Though they built it during the cold war, but again we dismiss the decisions of the Soviet Union entirely.

I've reached out to the International Atomic Energy Agency with a question about where the shelling of Zaporizhzhia falls on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. Chernobyl and Fukishima were the biggest disasters on the scale (7s). I got no reply as of today. There's not much information available for incidents and accidents, except for on Wikipedia. I wonder how long tit will remain that way. In Switzerland at the Leibstadt nuclear facility, they drilled holes to install fire extinguishers. That was a 1 one the scale, an incident. A highly avoidable one if there was proper communication from plant management. Unfortunately, the information is not made public about Zaporizhzhia, just as it wasn't for Chernobyl during the time. The reason is that if too much negative information is released about nuclear energy, public concern would turn against it. The Canadian government needs to rethink its nuclear strategy.

Thank you. Do what's best for the future. Ban nuclear power.

All the best,
Graham Janz, MSc